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“Are you guys alright?” I asked.
Markus was quiet for a little while, then he kissed the top of my head. “Yes, we will be. Two days from now will make it easier to know what you’ve gone through.”
“I love you,” I told him.
“I love you more,” he said and cuddled closer. “I like your new lotion. Makes you smell like apples,” Markus mumbled in his sleep as I drifted off myself.
Chapter thirty-three
Markus
IttookDashandAtlas a few deer and black bear kills to get their rage under control. A few times, I had to steer Danny and Dash from turning around toward the pack house. I knew it hit him harder. As bad as the pictures had been of Celeste, I’d seen her before she was healthy. I’d felt her bones protruding in every embrace and every time we cuddled, but I had forced myself not to think about how badly she was treated so I wouldn’t freak out before my mate. My priority had been getting her healthy and freeing her friends. I’d focused on that until today when the full extent of that pack’s cruelty was staring me in the face.
Danny met Maya when she had already been cleared to shift. He never saw her before, and it took a lot of talking down before I managed to calm him. We bathed in the river’s cold water before we made our way back to the pack house. He gently picked up Maya from Celeste’s arms and headed back to their floor.
I woke up early the next morning when someone banged on the door.
“Alpha! Luna! You both need to get up. We are having breakfast on time for once because the hair stylist is coming in promptly at two this afternoon. We have a packed schedule, and everything has to go right. You have two minutes to open this door before I break it down,” Kelly shrieked through the closed door.
“Can we just banish her?” Celeste mumbled, and I laughed.
“Gillian would probably be mad at us if we tried,” I said, leaning over and kissing her. Her arms instantly wrapped around my neck, and she deepened the kiss. I growled playfully, feeling my cock twitch, and I started to move on top of her when I heard another knock on the door.
“One minute! Unless you’re not very gifted, Alpha, you don’t have time to do what I heard you growling to do!” Kelly yelled through the door.
“Maybe we don’t banish her, but we could put her in the dungeons until after the ceremony,” I grumbled as I pressed my forehead to hers before moving off the bed and opening the door.
“Good Morning Kelly,” I said, glaring at her, but it didn’t have the desired effect.
“Good Morning Alpha. We need to have breakfast with the guests. Mom put me in charge of shoving both of you along so we can keep on schedule. She’s handling Maya and Danny, then we will switch at two so Maya, Celeste and I can get ready, and you, Danny and Gillian will get ready under Mom’s watchful eye,” she said as she went into the walk-in closet and grabbed some clothes for us to wear for the day, a clipboard in her hands. I rolled my eyes, took the clothes, and headed to the bathroom to change.
“Wait! I have to pee,” Celeste yelled, trying to beat me to the bathroom. I laughed and went into the walk-in to change instead. Once dressed, I walked out of the closet, waiting for her to come out so I could brush my teeth and make sure I was presentable. I heard a weird noise in the bathroom before it opened and frowned.
“Are you okay?” I asked, taking in the way she looked in the sophisticated outfit Kelly had chosen for her.
“Yes, it’s just nerves.” She smiled as she went to sit on the bed to wait for me.
“Three minutes, Alpha. The chef just linked me. Your food is ready,” Kelly said, and I rolled my eyes again and stepped into the bathroom. Today was going to be a long day if Kelly took her duties so seriously, which I knew she did. I loved this girl like a sister, but I just wanted to make Celeste my luna, get Alpha Geoff arrested, go rescue the girls, and then forget about the world, hiding away in this room with Celeste without interruptions. That wasn’t too much to ask of a morning, was it?
Maybe we can take her on a trip after?Atlas said, wagging his tail.Don’t humans call it a honeymoon?
Yes, I like that idea. We’ll talk to Gillian later about arranging it, I answered, brushing my teeth and hair.
We headed down to breakfast after Kelly deemed us presentable. Celeste was wearing a turquoise silk shell top with a light, black cardigan, blue slacks and some low-heeled black pumps. She looked stunning as always, her curls cascading down her back in a ponytail. We welcomed the arriving alphas and lunas and managed to find a lull so we could sneak some breakfast.
Some alphas remembered Celeste from when we were at Blood Moon, and commented on how beautiful and healthy she looked. Atlas raged possessively in my head about all these men talking about how pretty our mate looked and how they shouldn't have looked at her back then, much less now. My already long day was dragging from his constant belly aching, and we hadn’t even gotten through breakfast yet.
We ate breakfast while chatting with people around the table. Sandra kept sneaking glares at Celeste and Maya anytime people paid them a compliment. When she finally realized both women were mated to ranked members, she and her mother began angrily mind linking and shooting looks of contempt in Maya’s direction. It wasn’t until I pointedly asked if everything was alright that Alpha Geoff mind-linked something to both women that made them behave.
It wasn’t hard to see both women were angry to realize that Sandra was not only still mateless but more than likely mated to someone without rank, while the women they treated like trash were both happily mated to men of power.
Halfway through the breakfast, however, Sandra began eyeing Gillian and Kelly sitting together, trying to figure out if they were a couple. I could see the desperate woman hatching a plan to seduce my beta when she noticed a lack of a mate mark on his shoulder.
‘Sandra is eye fucking you,’I mind-linked Gillian.
‘Yes, I noticed. I hope some unmated alphas show up soon so her attention can go somewhere else because if she tries to flirt with me, I might just throw up my breakfast all over her hair,’he answered, and I almost choked on my toast from laughing. My face heated when a few amused heads turned my way as I tried to clear the blockage with coughs.
We spent the rest of the morning welcoming and settling in the alphas and their people as they arrived. Celeste and Maya were getting pulled one way and another. Kelly kept flitting in and out of the backyard, asking questions or dealing with something or other relating to the ceremony. Each was always discreetly followed by one of the four guards assigned to them. The guards were smart enough to keep rotating between the three girls so that it went unnoticed by the guests.
